Chapter 38
Cole walked slowly toward the idling black sedan, the heavy EMP casing in his hands feeling like the weight of the entire world. He didn't look at the armed mercenaries flanking the vehicle; his pale gray eyes were locked entirely on Viktor Volkov’s scarred, triumphant face.
"A wise decision, Lieutenant," Volkov sneered, rolling the window down further as Cole approached. "The Vanguard taught me that true power is derived from understanding a man's attachments. You are a brilliant soldier, Cole, but you are a terrible sociopath. You care too much."
"Take the weapons," Cole said coldly, stopping three feet from the car. "And deactivate the detonator."
"I will deactivate it once you are secured in the trunk of the trailing vehicle," Volkov smiled smoothly. "Hand the case to my men."
Two heavily armored mercenaries stepped forward, reaching for the reinforced casing.
Cole didn't hand it over immediately. He looked at Volkov, a dark, terrifying, and utterly unreadable expression settling over his rugged features.
"You said attachments make a man weak, Viktor," Cole murmured, his voice incredibly calm, lacking the desperate resignation Volkov expected. "But you forgot that I spent thirteen years in Task Force 9. My attachments are not a weakness. They are the reason I am willing to die."
Before the mercenaries could grab the case, Cole didn't surrender. He executed a maneuver so recklessly violent, it defied all tactical logic.
Cole didn't pull a weapon. He hurled the heavy, seventy-pound reinforced casing directly at the face of the first mercenary, the sheer kinetic force shattering the man's nose and dropping him instantly.
In the same fluid, explosive motion, Cole lunged forward, diving directly into the open window of the sedan.
He didn't try to grab the detonator. He bypassed it entirely, wrapping his massive, calloused hands around Viktor Volkov’s throat with bone-crushing, apocalyptic fury.
Volkov shrieked in terror, dropping the detonator onto the leather seat as he struggled frantically to break Cole’s iron grip.
"Shoot him! Shoot him!" Volkov gurgled, his face turning a dark, mottled purple.
The remaining mercenaries raised their weapons, but they were paralyzed. Cole had positioned his body so that any shot fired into the car would invariably strike their boss.
"You press that button, and I will crush your windpipe before the signal even reaches Montana," Cole whispered inches from Volkov’s face, his eyes burning with lethal, absolute certainty. "Cancel the order."
"I... I can't," Volkov choked out, his eyes bulging. "It's an automated... sequence..."
"Cancel it!" Cole roared, tightening his grip until the bones in Volkov's neck began to groan under the immense pressure.
Suddenly, the encrypted earpiece in Cole's ear crackled with a burst of static, followed by a bright, remarkably calm voice.
"Ghost-Actual, this is Overwatch," Sarah reported smoothly. "You can let the trash go. The Montana perimeter is secure."
Cole froze, his grip loosening slightly on the Russian's throat. "Sarah? What are you talking about?"
"Volkov wasn't lying about the explosives, Cole," Sarah explained, her fingers audibly typing in the background. "They planted C4 beneath the cabin. But he underestimated the paranoia of an off-grid logistics officer. I swept the foundation for anomalous signals three days ago. Master Sergeant Donovan manually disarmed the charges yesterday morning. We just let him believe he still held the detonator."
Cole let out a massive, shuddering breath, a terrifying, predatory smile spreading across his face as he looked down at the terrified Russian boss.
"It seems you miscalculated my attachments, Viktor," Cole whispered coldly.
He didn't kill Volkov. He delivered a brutal, devastating palm strike to the Russian’s temple, rendering the syndicate leader instantly unconscious.
Cole grabbed the dropped detonator and the silver EMP casing, rolling backward out of the vehicle before the stunned mercenaries could react.
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"Director Vance, target is neutralized," Cole stated calmly into his comms, raising his MP7 toward the bewildered guards. "I require immediate extraction."
"Copy that, Ghost-Actual," Vance replied smoothly. "Look up."
